After D.C. rapper Wale's major label debut went thud-- not even a Lady Gaga-assisted single could prop it up-- he got lucky. It took a while, though; dropped by Interscope, he was eventually swept into Rick Ross' nascent Maybach Music imprint, a group built to include both intriguing firebrands (Philly's Meek Mill, fishing enthusiast Gunplay) as well as rappers seeking either a consistent identity (Ohio's Stalley, Atlanta's now-invisible Pill) or a fresh start. Wale fell into the latter category, immediately switching his whole style up, transitioning from a rapper who bathed his aesthetic in his hometown's trademark go-go music, wore colorful hats, and dangled Seinfeld ephemera in his recordings to just another above-average rapper miring in bald bitterness, club rap, and feckless crew collaborations. In 2011, Wale put out the well-enough-received Ambition-- a well-balanced digest of his new, more jaded grip on the game-- a record that happened to contain the #1 Billboard Hip-Hop Single "Lotus Flower Bomb", probably the highest charting single from last year that no one will admit to liking. In a world where first-disc flameouts often go the way of the Recycle Bin, it could have been worse.
So, in a sense it's exciting to herald Wale's new mixtape, Folarin (his surname), as his best release since the initial hype-generator The Mixtape About Nothing. That doesn't necessarily mean Wale has completely exorcised his inclination to be a humongous cornball-- the Tiara Thomas-featuring "Bad" features some more of that cringe-worthy "Diced Pineapples"-style poetry-- but Folarin, in its way, approximates something close to being Wale's version of Rich Forever. Like that release, Folarin is long and comes complete with a couple throwaways like "H20" (an ode to "thirst" and a song built around a sample of bed squeaking), but it also serves as a platform for some of Wale's most carefree, fun songs. After hearing cuts like the Beat Billionare-produced 2 Chainz collab "Get Me Doe" and Chinx Drugz-featuring "Let a Nigga Know", you wonder why Wale doesn't just sit back and lob one-liners at visiting guests more often. The list of collaborators on Folarin is a characteristically mixed-bag featuring only one other labelmate-- Diplo, Trinidad James, French Montana, Hit-Boy (as a rapper), Danny! (as a producer)-- none of it feels like desperate crowdsourcing. Trinidad, in particular, delights in his bellicose blip, and the Diplo/Travis Porter rave-up "The One Eye Kitten Song" underlines Folarin's mission of pushing Wale into more lighthearted territory.
Attention Deficit was such an overreach that most folks wrote Wale off; not even a realignment with one of modern rap's biggest stars could fully invigorate the reputation of the one-time Next Big Thing. And, I'm not arguing that Folarin does that-- Wale is still in his own way with syrupy drivel like "Money Changes"-- but it does find the DC rapper having a better time, generally speaking. He's still the Wale you love or revile, a rapper who almost always lyrically overcooks it ("We out Garfield, we goin' Odie / With rap performance of Forbes got me catchin' up Oprah"), but it sounds like he's letting himself off the hook a little bit for his major label false start.
